The episode of Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt including the blacklisting of Hollywood writers with suspected, rarely proven (as if that should even matter), communist ties was one of our most embarrassing episodes in our recent history.

McCarthy was able to capitalize on the fears of world communist domination to scare us into trashing our most basic liberties such as free press and due process. The actual arrest of a few communist spies was just like adding gasoline to the fires of fear.

Anyone who opposed McCarthy was deemed suspect and thus was dissent squashed and reason trampled. Apparently the witch hunt started with an uneventful speech that was surprisingly given legs by unexpected press coverage. But once the story got legs McCarthy rode it for all it was worth until the fateful hearings when the Senator starting charging the Army with harboring communists; It was then that Joseph Nye, the army’s chief legal representative, startled the Senator and the Chamber with his famous smack down, “”Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

That comment was greeted with applause, and McCarthy quickly descended into shame and oblivion, and faced censure in the Senate. Edward R. Murrow also took a courageous stand on his show, “His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. [...] We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully.”

In spite of a free press and unlimited sources of information we have not escaped the dangers of a sycophantic press who fear being called ‘racist’ for challenging the reason or policy of a minority, or a ‘denier’ (i.e. as in ‘holocaust denier’ ) for challenging the claim ‘the debate is over’ (Al Gore’s response to challenges about global warming) when in fact the debate never occurred. Such accusations bring the same chill to dissent as ‘communist’ did from Joe McCarthy.

Any challenge to a political orthodoxy must come from within its own party to be effective. The opposition is never taken seriously and in this new era where most seek or filter the news to confirm their existing opinion, calls for change and contrary evidence cannot even be heard.

But we should remember Joseph Nye and Edward Murrow that it just takes one voice to expose a fraud and stop it dead in its tracks.

There is much debate about global warming. Apparently enough skepticism is emerging to change the term to “climate change”, or better yet, “man made climate change.” That way the real problem, “man” can be held accountable no matter which way the temperature goes.

To get beyond the precise scientific facts, which, let’s face it, few of us are capable of understanding; let’s just ask a few skeptical questions.

What is the optimum temperature for man’s well being? It would appear that warmer temperatures are better for growing food and avoiding mass starvation. Is cold weather not more threatening to human life that warm weather? Are we capable of knowing what the “right” temperature is?

How much impact do man’s activities have on our weather? Does not a single volcanic eruption create more atmospheric climate change than all of our industrial output? Does a minor change in the earth’s orbit have greater effect on whether we are in an Ice Age or an interim warming period?

Given the uncertainty of environmental trends and the impact caused by our activities, and the substantial cost required to mitigate this uncertainty, would we not help out our fellow man far more by putting this same amount of money into a cure for AIDS and other diseases, clean water, farming technology and education?

If we place a cap and trade allocation program on our carbon credits, who determines how many carbon credits are the proper amount? Can they be increased or decreased if the economic damage is too severe? How solid is the science that determines the proper amount of carbon credits? Is the science better that the common belief 30 years ago that cooling was a bigger problem?

Who will make the money trading these carbon credits? Enron which promoted the idea eight years ago is no longer around. Will other Wall Street firms trade in these credits? Who will regulate them? Will we be allowed to contract derivatives of carbon credits? Will the regulation be governed by political concerns, financial concerns or scientific concerns? Who will determine which concerns have more merit?

If the temperature becomes stable or starts to cool as some claim it already has, will the market for carbon credits be abolished?

How much impact will our carbon regulations have if most of the rest of the world does not emulate our policy?

Our environmental proposals stand to cost us a fortune. There is uncertainty that there really is global warming. There is uncertainty that it is man made. There is uncertainty that our proposals will have any impact. There is uncertainty that warming is necessarily bad and if so relative to what? There is uncertainty what the optimal temperature is. Without such an objective how do we measure the progress of our actions?

There is great uncertainty whether the cost of mitigating this uncertain problem yields a benefit that justifies the expense, especially given much greater benefits that can be had with less money and greater certainty.

If I was a man who played the odds, I would consider our “climate change” proposals a very bad bet.

In the July/ August ’09 issue of Atlantic on page 19 lies a full page ad from Shell Oil Company featuring a message from their President Marvin Odum in support of Cap and Trade.

Odum opens his letter “For Shell, the debate about whether climate change is real is over.”

It is striking that he does not address the issue as ‘global warming’ but he calls it ‘climate change’. This indicates that global warming is attracting too many legitimate skeptics, but the global harbingers of doom do not want to relinquish the political power this evil mirage has come so close to delivering.

Can anyone debate that “climate change is real”? Now that ‘warming’ is in doubt, can we be too ‘cold’? Are we to make Mother Nature so precise that we should ‘ban’ any deviation from seasonal norms, regardless of their cause? Can we possibly know the origin of climate variations or ‘change’? Is it atmospheric change, variations in our orbital pattern, or a consequence of industrial emissions? Do we actually know what the correct temperature is supposed to be? If we do, it is possible to fine tune this thermostat through some matrix of government or industrial policies? Is this starting to sound more ridiculous by the day?

We can estimate how many barrels of oil are in the ground, how many tons of copper, aluminum or iron ore is in the ground or in industrial storage, or how many bushels of wheat or corn is likely to be harvested; but who knows how many ‘units’ or ‘carbon credits’ there are to be traded. This will be a figure created by the government. Certainly there will be some delusional sham calculation made by scientists who claim to be able to read the pulse of God, but does anyone think that the number of carbon credits will not be adjusted constantly for political purposes?

But why would any oil company support such a ridiculous system? One guess is just political pressure, but I think there are other motivations. It is common for crony capitalists to use government regulation to limit competitors’ entry into their field. This cap and trade policy is perfectly suited for such an ambition; what better way to make your existing energy assets more valuable than to limit your competitors’ access to competing assets?

Perhaps the established energy companies see the political drive as being inevitable and they are just trying to have a voice at the table. But the only thing I am more skeptical of than a massive social change based on incredibly dubious information claiming that the “debate is over” are compliant industry captains cheering them on with public altruistic statements.

IN the Boston Globe Jeff Jacoby thinks through the economics of fuel economy.

When gas was cheap environmentalists wanted expensive gas to encourage less driving or more fuel efficient technologies. Instead of cheering $4 gas, however, they cursed oil companies.

Yet subsidizing fuel efficient technologies will make driving cheaper, thus encouraging people to drive more, ultimately using more energy. This will drive down the price of oil and also encourage its use.

Advocating higher oil prices is politically unpopular, so now environmentalists advocate lower fuel prices and less energy consumption. These are mutually exclusive goals.

This recession has done more to reduce fuel consumption than most other environmental policies. Politicians tend to take credit for solving problems that are already solving themselves.

See all of Jacoby’s article here.

Deroy Murdock notes that even hard core leftists are rejecting the Gore delusion of global warming as empirically and factually false, and a distraction from far more serious problems.

Tips to Evan Koplin